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BZZZTTTT - since when did models come to permeate science and economics. From the Literary Review of Canada: Blind Oracles
Researchers have developed models to predict everything from earthquakes to pandemics. The trouble is, they don't work.

Humankind has always wanted to predict the future. It seems we are genetically inclined to want to find out what is coming up around the next corner. This is especially true of scientists, many of whom believe that prediction is the real aim, and the best test, of any scientific theory. Just ask the writers of those leaked emails from the University of East Anglia�s Climatic Research Unit.

But the histories of science and prediction have long been closely intertwined. The most successful forecasting operation of all time was the oracle at Delphi, in ancient Greece. It lasted for almost a thousand years, beginning in the 8th century BC. The predictions were made by a woman, known as the Pythia, who was chosen from the local population as a channel for the god Apollo. Her predictions were often vague or even two sided, which perhaps explains how she lasted so long�rather like Alan Greenspan. A bit more:

Today, scientists have mostly taken over the mantle of prediction from astrologers or organized religion. Like the Greeks before them, they have built hugely complicated models of the cosmos, based not on circles but on equations. General circulation models predict tomorrow�s weather or the climate in a hundred years� time. General equilibrium models predict the flow of the economy. Geological models of the Earth�s crust attempt to predict earthquakes or the eruption of volcanoes. When governments want to know the impact of their policies on future generations, or want to protect against disasters, it is to these models that they turn.

The article is actually a book review:

Megadisasters: The Science of Predicting the Next Catastrophe explains for lay readers the predictive science behind such hopes. The author, Florin Diacu, is a mathematician at the University of Victoria who specializes in celestial mechanics and chaos theory.

And the crux of the problem:

Weather forecasting, for example, has certainly improved since the 1950s, when we did not have supercomputers or weather satellites. But progress has tapered off, and forecasts of precipitation still lose most of their accuracy after just a few days. Economic forecasting is in even worse shape. At the start of 2008, a poll of forecasters by Bloomberg showed an average expected gain for the S&P 500 index of 11 percent, with no one predicting a decline. By year end the market was down 38 percent. In biology, we still cannot predict the effects of a new drug, or a new virus like swine influenza, despite the success of the Human Genome Project at decoding our DNA. And as geophysicist Susan Hough wrote recently in the New York Times, �scientists have been chasing earthquake prediction�the holy grail of earthquake science�for decades � Yet we have little to no real progress to show for our efforts.�

This does not stop anyone from making predictions, of course. Today, we are bombarded more than ever in the media with forecasts about the weather or the economy or politics, and are frightened by stories of climate change or deadly pandemics. Forecasting has become big business, especially in areas such as business and economics, but the poor track record of the oracles is rarely discussed. Our inclination and curiosity toward the future seem to make us equally incurious about going back to see whether past forecasts were right.

The upshot of all this is that the science of prediction has a considerable amount of baggage attached to it. Scientists are in an awkward position, and more than just grant money is at stake. For two millennia they have striven to predict and control the universe, and have held that up as the ultimate test of success or failure. The fact that the models cannot predict is a great concern�and it leads to some rather dysfunctional responses.

Rather dysfunctional responses indeed! Should be an interesting book... Posted by DaveH at January 31, 2010 3:38 PM